Common Sense Living

Posts Tagged ‘weight loss’

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_{What a wild ride the holidays were this year with all those long weekends! I hope you had plenty of time to enjoy the season this year.}

_{Even though flu attacked half the family – we still had very nice holidays. Lots of good eating.}

_{New Years Day ends the holiday season. Now its time to get back on track.}

_{Get the house cleaned up. The weather was pretty crummy today. Since I had no intention of venturing out – I’ve got the upstairs un-Christmased, and pretty well cleaned up. Whatever I missed with be taken care of in my weekly routines. I’ve still got the downstairs to do though…}

_{Get back to a healthy diet It was a nice break from salads, and now they are tasting good again. I don’t want to see turkey for a year. Enough already! And I’ve had my fill of cookies and pumpkin pie. Normal stuff sounds pretty good about now. Italian would be good, don’t you think? With a big salad and some wine…}

_{And once you’ve got all the holiday stuff behind you – its time to start working on your goals for this year.}

_{I don’t like to call them resolutions. We never stick to resolutions. But we do work on goals. Maybe because goals is instilled in us from a young age? So, instead of resolving to lose weight, make a goal to lose so many pounds.}

_{If losing weight is one of your goals this year, I’ve written a new free report over at Rebel With a Fork that should help – How to permanently lose weight and live a healthy, energy filled life >>>}

For me, my goal is health related. The stress, long hours, a desk job, not having the dog to walk, lack of exercise, and did I mention the stress? Something’s gotta give or I’m gonna die. No, seriously – I am concerned.

I’ve got to get more exercise, and I have to find ways to relieve some of the stress. I’m starting the PACE program. I’ll let you know how it goes.

I’m also finding that the monthly format for Rebel with a Fork is stressful. For the moment, Rebel With a Fork will be an ebook on steroids. I’ll still be updating – but I won’t be trying to do big features every month. It will be good for both of us.

How will it be good for you?

During my little hiatus, you can get a lifetime membership for just $47. If you are currently a member, I’ll be contacting you before your next billing about how to change over.

I might try some yoga too. We’ll see.

I have business goals too, but for right now, I’ve got to get back in balance and quit driving myself so hard.

And I need to get to bed. I’m working tomorrow – which is probably today by the time you’re reading this. Have some fun for me today, OK?

How about you? Do you have any goals you’d like to share?

So, how has the first week of the year gone for you?

Are you excited, or drained?

Are you done with your New Year Diet yet?

Are you supercharged about your goals, or has life numbed you back down again?

It’s hard maintaining enthusiasm when you aren’t getting results yet, isn’t it? That’s why its so important to always keep the vision of the life you want alive in your mind – and take some sort of action every day that will move you towards your goal.

If you want to lose weight, start with eating a salad every day and replacing one of your pops with water, or green tea, or juice. Take small steps. Its better than no steps.

Do you want a better career? According to the late Earl Nightengale, if you read something related to your field for an hour a day, in 5 years you will be an expert in your field.

There was a video that I wanted to share with you, but I lost it. I’ll try to explain what she did, and I hope I can do it justice…

The video was about rewiring your brain for success. She was talking about using affirmations, but what she did was really different. In her example, she said something like, “you are awesome.” Before you could have another thought she repeated, “you are awesome.” And she did it over and over again. It was really weird because you just couldn’t have another thought. She just kept hammering you with it.

So, the exercise is that you state your positive affirmation in the present tense -

I am thin, or I feel great, or I make $500 a day, or whatever your goal is. You repeat it over and over, not allowing another thought to bubble up for 5 minutes a day. They say the best times to do these kinds of exercises are when you get up, and/or right before you go to sleep. I find in the car works for me.

She says it take 90 days to see results. That’s a long time, isn’t it? Most of the self improvement gurus say 30 days. But it really has such a weird effect on you that I’m trying to keep up with it. At a minimum, it keeps me motivated to actually take action – so in some respect it will work, right?

Let me know if you try it and how it makes you feel.

Let’s make this a great year!

By fitness and nutrition author Jon Benson

I took a big, huge, massive sigh of relief today.

Finally… the FDA did something right when it comes to bogus “magic” diet-fatburn pills.

A panel of experts reviewed Vivus Inc.’s new wonder-pill “Qnexa” today.

They gave it the thumbs-down.

Why?

Oh… pesky little reported side-effects like… (are you ready for this?)…

Heart Attacks
Stroke
Increased Risk of Suicide (yikes!)
Memory/Concentration Loss

You know… “minor” stuff like that.

GEEZ. What the hell are these drug companies thinking?

Oh, right…

Quick-Fix =
Big-Bucks

Got it.

So, I am going to believe that YOU are much smarter than the morons who tried to get this drug past the FDA.

I’m going to assume you want a solution to this obesity pandemic and your own fatloss issues (if you have them) that do NOT involve risking your life for a thinner you.

“Oh, Marge… she looks so thin in her casket…”

THIS IS NOT A GOOD EULOGY! : )

Listen: I get it. I really do.

I’m an athlete and we are always looking for tricks to help increase our performance. But your body is simply too smart for these fatloss-pills people are trying to pass off as “a break-through medical discovery.”

Nonsense… more like heart-breaking medical waste of time.

One day… perhaps even in my lifetime… someone will invent a chemical that actually works to shed bodyfat without harming the body. That will be a great day for all of us.

Even so, I can all but promise you that this chemical will have its nasty side-effects and/or be limited in duration or power.

Nothing, repeat NOTHING you can pop in your mouth will give you the JOY that managing your dietplan and bodyweight can give you.

NOTHING!

It’s one of the greatest feelings in the world.

And here’s a fantastic clue for you: The reason we want to be thin is because of the FEELING it gives us. Most everything we do is based on feelings.

Quick-fixes negate the most powerful thing about feelings: Earning the right to have them!

Think of it this way: Would you feel more alive and powerful if you climbed a mountain or if you took a helicopter ride to the summit?

Sure, the helicopter is easy… but which is more personally rewarding?

Think of your own body transformation goals as your personal mountain to climb.

No helicopters… just really good guides (I volunteer) and solid climbing tools (like a great real-world dietplan, solid workouts that work WITH your schedule, and realistic but exciting goals.)

Your goals will become your base camps along your summit of your personal journey to the best you possible.

Color me silly, but I think that sounds FAR more empowering and rewarding that popping pills.

As you probably know I wrote one of the top books in the world on “real-world” weighttloss (spelled that way so the spambox won’t eat your email… : ) I made this dietary System as easy as possible… but NO plan is “easy” and there is NO quick-fixes out there without serious pricetags.

That said, I have some “rebel tricks” to share with you today… and they won’t put you six feet under before your time.

Just click on the page below and then click on “Articles”… then you’ll see it. It’s the first article, “3 Diet Secrets Revealed”.

Go here:

Video Plus Articles Homepage

You can’t sell this stuff in a bottle… but it works to get the bodyfat off and keep it off.

Remember:

Don’t Quit… Get Fit.

Sincerely,

J O N B E N S O N

—-> SPECIAL NOTE: On the article page above, be sure to read until the bottom. If you like that article you can now just click a button and share it with your friends on Facebook, Twitter, or any number of cool sites.

The button looks like this:

P.S. If you pick up my dietplan (on the article page above) you’ll find in the Member’s Area three supplements that actually DO work to help you burn-off-fat… but they do not work like magic. They work like they’re supposed to: Realistically, and without harming your body. I take them. So should you.

By fitness and nutrition author Jon Benson

Another good article appeared recently in the fitness section of MSNBC.

Since you’re busy, I’ll do a quick summary of the article — the good stuff, the bad stuff, and what you need to do today to get started…

First, you need to know this…

And this will probably shock you…

Rarely, if EVER, do you need to suppress your appetite!

The real secret is to increase your metabolism… the rate at which your body uses food for fuel.

Then being hungry is a good thing… as long as you’re eating the right foods at the right time.

My “Favorite Foods” plan is a great way to do this…

My “Favorite Foods” Dietplan revealed < == click.

But let’s say you want to curb your appetite at night…. that’s the time most people really lose it on a dietplan. Even on a plan that ASKS you to eat frequently like mine, there are times where night-time cravings need to be put to sleep.

So use these tips from the article to ease the urge to eat at night:

1. Protein First

As I say in my dietplan, “Rise and shine with protein.” What does this have to do with night-time cravings you ask?

Everything.

Set the body up to use your own fat-stores for fuel by eating protein in the morning and your appetite FOR fatty foods goes way down during the day and the night. Protein is “thermogenic”, meaning it helps increase your metabolism. It also acts as a natural appetite regulator.

Notice I said “regulator” and not “suppressant.” That’s because you only need to regulate your appetite, no matter how much bodyfat you desire to drop.

I show you how here:

My “Favorite Foods” Dietplan revealed < == click.

Cool, right?

2. Go For The Grapefruit

In a study at the Nutrition and Metabolic Research Center at the Scripps Clinic in San Diego, people who ate half a grapefruit with each meal lost an average of 3.6 pounds in three months. That doesn’t sound like a lot (and it isn’t) but that’s ALL they changed.

It doesn’t matter for our purposes… we want to lower insulin at night. Why? Insulin is not only dangerous for your health in excess but it also can cause a LOT of fat storage if secreted too much at night. Enter the lowly grapefruit.

A great snack, especially if you have a few bites of lean protein with it.

3. Smell This!

This is a trick I didn’t know about until recently.

Smelling food can trick your brain into thinking you’ve eaten.

A recent study found that those who inhaled peppermint in scent form every 2 hours at (get this) 2700 calories LESS per week than they normally did.

Let me put that in perspective: That’s a fatloss of more than half a pound a week… from sniffing peppermint!

Vanilla also works. You can keep vanilla-scented drops or even candles around the office and take a wiff every few hours.

How easy is that?

The Bad Part

The MSNBC article goes on with advice like “eat potatoes” and “eat just a little bit of fat”, both of which are nonsense.

Potatoes may fill you up, but they are still starch – and starch should be consumed on your “off” days.

Potatoes are especially bad due to the higher-than-desired glycemic index of 85 (anything over 50 is too high.)

You also need dietary fat… and not just “a little.” You need a moderate amount to stay healthy and keep insulin regulated.

Olive oil and even coconut oil are excellent sources, as are naturally occurring fats in fresh fish, grass-fed beef, farm-raised chicken and whole eggs.

The rest of the article is common sense stuff: Workout, eat dense food that requires you to chew a lot (tire out the jaw muscles and you naturally eat less), etc.

The top 3 are the real winners.

I was a little nervous when I came across this video. Here we have an esteemed researcher from Stanford. He begins his talk saying that he’s been a vegetarian for 25 years, and has done studies on Soy – and I’m thinking “oh boy”.

It turned out to be very enlightening. And he turned out to be an interesting speaker too, which is great since the video is over an hour long…

Here’s some points from the video that I’ve stated all along -

None of the diets worked all that well. Average weight loss after a year was 30 pounds.

The diets are all very hard to stick with.

Higher grain intake doesn’t work.

You do need water.

You do have to get some sort of exercise, but it doesn’t have to be at the gym.

They talked about how people from a naturally healthy culture would start having health and obesity problems when exposed to a ‘western’ diet, proving that it’s not genetic. I scored again! That’s already in High Energy Eating.

He said that nutritionists sell nutrients, but people buy food. That’s one of the biggest components of High Energy Eating – all of the great food you could be eating and how it helps you.

I’m serious, if you could have seen me watching this, you would have thought I was watching a football game – that’s how excited I got. Not to sounded conceited – but I’m right! 

But what made me really joyous is when he admitted that being a vegetarian might not be the answer, and that soy is not the answer they thought it was.

And, he talked about future studies that they are working on – I’ve already covered those topics in High Energy Eating too. Anti-oxidants, sleep, got it covered!

You have no idea how happy I am right now.

But what would make me even happier if if you would apply all of this in your life and get thin, healthy  and happy.

If you can carve out the hour and 16 minutes to watch this video – you will learn a ton. And then grab a copy of High Energy Eating and start living it yourself. I’m here to support you every step of the way.

No matter how you choose to do it, get yourself started on a healthier diet. Your life really does depend on it.